Thinking at Twilight, 13 August 2020 with Prof Ed Davis AM

Members from NSW and Victoria (in lockdown) joined the call on Pexip to hear hear guest speaker and fellow alum Emeritus Professor Ed Davis AM (Queens, 1969-73) talk on The ABC in Crisis: Implications for Australian Democracy. It was an insightful and thought-provoking talk resulting in many questions from those attending.

Thinking at Twilight, Thursday 28 May 2020 with Dr Suzy Green

On Thursday 28 May the Society held their first virtual event with Dr Suzy Green on ‘The What, Why & How of Positive Psychology’. Dr Suzy Green is an affiliate of the Well-being Institute, University of Cambridge, and is Founder & CEO of The Positivity Institute based in Sydney. This event was the first digital offering in the group’s incredibly popular ‘Thinking at Twilight’ lecture series, which has moved online in light of the ongoing social restrictions. The group received positive feedback from its attendees, including those from slightly further afield: ‘Thank you for extending the invitation to New Zealand. I found the talk really helpful. I hope we may be able to join in again in the future.’ The group used the online webinar platform Pexip, which was expertly managed by committee member Emily Baxter. Attendees were able to use the chat box if they wanted to participate with questions and comments, or simply listen and enjoy the webinar. Over 40 group members registered for this event and all registrants have been sent a link to the recording. As is usual for Thinking at Twilight’s events, the audience was a mixture of alumni of all ages and backgrounds. You can watch the recording of Cambridge Society of NSW’s Thinking at Twilight ‘The What, Why & How of Positive Psychology’ https://youtu.be/y2_VtsbxlPw https://youtu.be/c7PZ_Et70MQ - The 3 factors that have the biggest impact on organisational effectiveness https://youtu.be/Nx_c3v2XiPM - Impact of stress and negative emotion on our immune system https://youtu.be/TW_3IAZiAxw - How memory is effected by positive or negative moods https://youtu.be/EqZbbeafzqw - 3 essential needs to thrive in an organisation

Cambridge Society of NSW AGM, Thursday 30 April 2020

The AGM for 2019 was held on Thursday 30 April 2020, via zoom. 17 members attended. Thank you to the following who take on committee roles: President: Amrit Bahra Vice President: Chris Dawson Secretary: Dr Jonathan Negus Treasurer: Moray Vincent Committee members: Emily Baxter, Jack Bartel, Eddy Goldsmith, Gautham Srivinas, Rhiannon Chisholm, Rhys Goodey, Julie-Anne Bosich and Liza Rybak.

Christmas Thinking at Twilight, Wednesday 11 December 2019

Members were invited to take a break from the pre-Christmas rush, enjoy the calm of the UUSC, mingle with fellow alumni and hear from economist and Cambridge alum Professor Michelle Baddeley on 'Copycats & Contrarians'. Michelle Baddeley has recently started new roles as the Associate Dean - Research and Professor in Economics at the University of Technology Sydney Business School. She is also an Honorary Professor with the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity, University College London. She was Director of Studies (Economics), Fellow and Tutor/Admissions Tutor at Gonville & Caius College 1995-2013, affiliated with the Faculty of Economics. She has an MPhil and PhD in Economics from University of Cambridge, and a BA and BEcon from the University of Queensland. Michelle gave insights from her recent book, Copycats & Contrarians - Why We Follow Others, and When We Don't (Yale University Press) - a multidisciplinary exploration of our human inclination to herd, exploring why our instinct to copy others can be dangerous in today’s interlinked world. Rioting teenagers, tumbling stock markets, political ructions and the spread of religious terrorism appear to have little in common, but all are driven by the same basic instincts: the tendency to herd, conform and imitate others. We learnt copycats and contrarians can be symbiotic and neither type is invariably good or bad!

Sir Gregory Winter at Sydney University, Wednesday 13 November 2019

Dr Robin Fitzsimons invited CamSoc NSW members to hear Trinity College alum Sir Gregory Winter at Sydney University on Wednesday 13 November 2019. Greg shared the 2018 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, and was until recently Master of Trinity. He is a moleclar biologist who "humanized" monoclonal antibodies to enable them to be used therapeutically, across the clinical spectrum from cancer to autoimmune disease to multiple sclerosis to migraine etc. He can reasonably be said to be to modern medicine what Fleming and Florey were to penicillin and the antibiotic era. He had to be his own entrepreneur, and when early on Big Pharma was indifferent he turned to the Australian racing fraternity for seed funding for his first "start-up", Cambridge Antibody Technology. Monoclonals now form the basis of an international pharmaceutical enterprise worth more than $US115 billion.Greg received an Honorory Doctorate in Medical Science the previous week.